Rough Cuts: Critics Got It Wrong With Woody Allen's 'Whatever Works'

I don't understand movie critics, even though I was one for 30 years. Sometimes, they just blow it.

Take Woody Allen's'Whatever Works,' released last summer to some of the worst reviews of his career. "[A] toxic, contemptuous, unforgivably unfunny bagatelle," wrote the critic for the Washington Post. Playing off its title, the New York Times critic concluded that "None of it works. Or it works too hard. Whatever." Likewise, the Wall Street Journal summed it up as "Whatever works doesn't."